Fit2Thrive

Introducing the Road to Christmas #roadtoxmas

Christmas is one of the happiest times of year and I’m aiming to make this years holiday one of the best we’ve ever had as a family. To do that I’ve been preparing throughout the year with all sorts of adventures at home and further afield.

Now we are on the home stretch I want to share with you all the fun but also some of the secrets I employ.

Play makes you strong

Adventures are inherently challenging in some way which is not always obvious at first and challenge is how we grow strong. As I share our adventures I will highlight the opportunities each presents for us to grow stronger.

Christmas to me is like a series of exciting adventures and, just like last year, I’m going to have a fantastic time, eat the best food and do every thing I want and on top of all this I will end it stronger than when I started. Don’t believe me? then be sure to follow the series. I guarantee that by the end you will know how to get stronger and healthier by having the time of your life 🙂

It’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it

This is inherently true of health and fitness, for example when we try to get the health results of the mediterranean culture we have only copied their diet even though all the evidence shows that it is the attitude to food and life in general in mediterranean culture that provides the majority of health benefits.

In fact if you compare cultures known for a healthy way of life including:

French

Mediterranean

Japanese

And many more, you will find a consistent message. They all do 3 things well:

recover

eat

move

The science behind this can get very complex and much of it is relatively new and hard to find. Though the knowledge that these 3 aspects are crucial and must all be in balance is age old.

The challenge is always how to implement this in YOUR life on a daily basis and particularly when you have SO MUCH on.

That is what I want to help you with and through my #roadtochristmas series I will give you many examples of how playing around and having fun makes me stronger and healthier and can do the same for you.

Be happy AND healthy

This is my way to counter the standard health and fitness approach that says you can either choose between being happy or healthy you decide.

For years I’ve been honing my approach and now I’m sharing my Road to Christmas as a challenge to you.

How do you make christmas the most fun you’ve ever had and get stronger and healthier at the same time?

You need to recover, eat and move every day and over the series I will show you many ways to

do each of these things that bit better

increase the range of options open to you

learn what works for you

Recover

Better

Eat

Better

Move

Better

Key features of #roadtochristmas

Motivation

Health and fitness are on going challenges. Learn to enjoy the journey and you will enjoy the pursuit of health for the rest of your life

You are built for this era

All cultures do basically the same thing, work, play, socialise, celebrate but every culture does it differently.

You just need to learn how to do these things in this modern era of human existence in ways that balance you.

Low effort

Good health doesn’t need to be hard. When you do things you love they never feel as hard as doing things you dislike.

Incremental improvements

Don’t set crazy targets that only make you feel bad if you struggle to reach them.

Just try to improve a little every day in at least one area. Over a year that’s 365 improvements!!! and you won’t be working so hard you want to give up.

Example: 17,476 steps in 2 lazy days!!!

A great example is the weekend just gone which is typical of our lazy weekends. Just look at the fitbit stats and you will see I achieved a lot my fitness targets even though I didn’t “do” that much.

This is what a lot of my life is like, bouncing between different forms of fun and getting useful things done at the same time. In the end I’m easily racking up 9k steps a day with little real effort.

Saturday

A lazy day without kids where I tidied the house and ran some errands. I spent most of it listening to podcasts and catching up on fun.

Sunday

I made 4 of the 5 fitness targets including 10,000 steps and 53 active minutes. All I did was a little tidying then a play date. Just a normal weekend really.

Your view: What makes you happy?

I’m still putting the final pieces of this series together so YOU can personalise it to YOUR needs.
Just answer one question for me either